In any artform there are certain characterics that need to be applied. As a guitar player, I have to say that the pinnacle of guitar tone was given to man by Jimi Hendrix. Any guitar player will tell you this is true, as they all have spent hours and much money trying to get the tone that he had - few succeed. Alfred Hitchcock gave the same essential principles to cinema. His techniques seem so basic today, but they were revolutionary - long after the digital craze has come and gone, photographers will continue to go back to the basic fundamentals in movie-making that were given to them by Alfred Hitchcock. He is the Jimi Hendrix of film. I guarantee you that Brian DePalma, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas all find themselves in total awe when they watch anything made by Hitch. He is an icon that is revered by icons as the best that ever lived. His techniques are the “holy grail” that all others wish to obtain and master.
As far as ClintonMorgan’s quote “I wouldn’t say that Hitchcock was a founding father of film since a lot did come before him such as Sergei Eisenstien and D.W. Griffith. That said a lot of the early innovations in cinema (associative montage for example) are British** (check out the documentary ‘Silent Britain’).”, I say WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HITCHCOCK IF THEY WERE SO MUCH BETTER???
